


Purgatory

by archwrites (Arch)



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Pre-Canon, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 21:18:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arch/pseuds/archwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How the Fat Friar came to Hogwarts. And why does a friar become a ghost, anyway, instead of going on to Heaven?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Purgatory

_In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti._

Brother William splashed water on his face. It was hot, this July day, and with the sun blazing on his cassock he whispered (not for the first time) a prayer that he would be more disciplined in the future. The walking combined with the heat was likely to send him along the fast track to Paradise, or Purgatory, perhaps, since God knew he had much to atone for. "Less bread," he thought as the water trickled coldly down his neck, "less beer, more charity, and more work."

Still, he should rest here, where he could get his bearings. He ignored the voice that reminded him that he was being lazy, that walking was work, that as a mendicant he was meant to live a life of penury and homelessness and long painful days of blisters and sore feet.

_Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum._

The stream where he knelt bubbled and sparkled cheerfully beneath the noon sun. He had no idea where he was -- somewhere north of the Scottish border, he knew, but how far? How much further did he need to go to reach the place he sought? Did it even exist? Only the vaguest of hints sketched out a hazy and uncertain map north, paths hesitantly plotted by whispered rumors of heresy and witchcraft that filtered among the brethren that he met along the way. He couldn't tell anyone, not even his confessor, the real reason he had become a friar. He worried, often, that he was possessed by the devil: when he made fires start so quickly and created salves that healed so effectively, was he blessed by God or cursed, practicing skills or being tested?

_Adveniat regnum tuum._

The rumor was that somewhere in Scotland, a group of heretics had founded some sort of institute for witchcraft. "Building an army," whispered some fearfully, "attacking the Church, preparing the way for the Antichrist." Maybe so, but Brother William wanted to see for himself. Maybe, if he were lucky, he would find not heretics but brothers: a group that would accept him fully and not burn him if they discovered the truth about him.

_Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra._

As he lifted his head, he saw several figures approaching in the distance. He heaved himself to his feet and decided to give them a wide berth. There seemed to be a village ahead. Perhaps he could find shelter there, minister to the villagers, and (while he was at it) gently probe to see whether any of them knew where this castle of heretics might be located. He was desperate; he could no longer live with the guilt and secrecy, the iron control that demanded all of his attention and prevented him from adequately disciplining his body. How could he pay attention to what he ate when the only way he could prevent himself from shooting sparks out of his fingertips was to maintain such a stranglehold on his emotions?

And how much longer could he keep his secret from the Church?

_ Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie_

He had a reputation for miracles; when he was very young, visiting a famine-stricken village for the first time, he had produced bread out of thin air, hundreds and hundreds of loaves, fresh and soft and sweet. The villagers had praised God, but Brother William knew the bread had not come from God but from him, somehow; the power had not been outside him, channeling through, but had come from within him. _He_ had conjured bread and he didn't know how. His brothers revered him, his fame preceded him, and his status as a mendicant existed in name only: when he visited towns, he always received the best of everything.

For this, too, he did penance.

_et dimitte nobis debita nostra,  
sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris._

He owed everything to the Church. He knew this. There had been some crisis when he was eleven; his parents had received some sort of notice, and they had panicked and sent him to the priest. There had been a service -- holy water, the laying on of hands -- he hadn't understood then, but now he knew he had been exorcised.

But he had not been, not really.

He was careful to do no harm with his strange powers, and they seemed to do no harm in him. Hairshirts and self-flagellation did not chase away these abilities he had any more than they could chase away the color of his eyes. What penance could be demanded for something that was as much a part of him as his nose or his hair or his hands? It was how one used one's body that mattered, and his was all for the glory of God.

Or tried to be.

Forgiveness is for sins, not for existing, he thought. Could anyone really be damned simply for having been born?

But this way led to heresy.

_Et ne nos inducas in tentationem_

Brother William finally crested a hill and looked down into a valley, where a village thrived. Beyond that he could see a lake, and at the far end, something that looked very much like a castle tower gleamed briefly in the sunlight before mists wreathed it.

Mists. On a clear, hot July afternoon.

"A castle, hidden from the world," the rumor had been. Hidden by malicious sorcery, by evil mists, perhaps? Or by benign mists, controlled by a natural force that only seems supernatural to those who don't understand?

Could he walk up to the doors? Would his reputation as a miracle-worker, as a man of God (and therefore a threat to these people) have preceded him here?

His heart pounded oddly. He was a large man, and the day was hot. Just a little ways further, he thought.

_sed libera nos a malo._

When he reached the gates, he was surprised to find them swinging open to admit him, as if by magic.

The courtyard was empty, and he slowly entered. The gates swung closed behind him with a sound of satisfied finality, and the hairs on the back of his neck prickled.

"Hello?" he called. His voice echoed around him, and when he turned back to the gates, they refused to budge. He had no choice but to press forward.

Pushing through the great doors, he entered the cool darkness of the castle, then stopped short when he realized that the dim illumination that lit the way ahead came from floating candles. "Sorcery," he whispered, and the word's unearthly susurration echoed through the hall.

"Magic," said a voice to his right, and he whirled to see a kindly old woman. She smiled and bowed. "Welcome, brother. How has a mendicant friar come to Hogwarts?"

"On foot," he said, foolishly, and she laughed.

"Let me give you some refreshment," she offered, and he followed her gratefully through the cool, empty halls to a statue of a gargoyle, which opened miraculously to a whispered word, and the stairs themselves carried them up to a sunlit office at the top.

The castle was, apparently, a school for the training of young witches and wizards. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting. A community of wild and dangerous heretics, perhaps, or the court of an eccentric nobleman with aspirations to the crown, or (most optimistically) a group of misfits like himself. But not a school, organized, with professors and lectures and hundreds of children, headed by a gentle old woman whose soothing voice promised a kind of welcome he had never experienced before.

Thus Brother William suddenly found himself confessing fully, for the first time. This was itself transgressive, seeking absolution from a woman and a self-confessed witch. Yet the words spilled from him: confessing about the devil that seemed to possess him, about his parents sending him away, about his life of alternating indulgence and penance, about the rumors of saintliness that preceded him and only enhanced his overwhelming, persistent, pervasive guilt. He told her why he was searching for the castle of heretics. Purgatory, he said, was not what came after death, but before. Purgatory was his life of penance and guilt.

Deliver me, his voice said, and she reached out and took his hand in hers.

He wanted neither Paradise nor Purgatory, for he belonged in neither.

_Amen._   



End file.
